The Becoming Reading List

The Becoming Reading List

I discovered that the best way to give shape to a material, is to feed yourself. With time, with information that sparks curiosity, rest, and different forms of art, perspectives.

It would be impossible to list all the influences that went into writing The Becoming – all the micro-impressions I’ve collected. Equally, it is its own thing, channelled in musings and looking inward.

However, I would like to acknowledge some bodies of work today that sit closest in time and influence to when I was finalising the book and preparing its launch.

They are divided into two categories, Research & Concepts, and Poetry

Research & Concepts

Some of the ideas I delved into in these books were so revelatory and mind-blowing, I wondered how I was permitted to read them. Yet, they often felt like they had been nestled somewhere deep within me already. I had to pause and re-read certain sections with mouth agape.

• Mandy Aftel – Essence & Alchemy
  This was the very first book I read when allowed myself immersion into the art of perfume-making. It outlined the blending of fragrance with such psychological depth, it prompted me to look into alchemical concepts throughout history with a magnifying glass.
• Marie-Louise von Franz – Alchemy
  Alchemy and analytical psychology walk hand in hand. Marie-Louise von Franz was a student of Carl Jung, and she unpacks the fundamentals of his teachings, and the whirlpools of human psyche with vivid examples.
• Marko Pogačnik – Nature Spirits & Elemental Beings
  This is a book I was familiar with since childhood, and it was emotional to return to it as an adult. Marko looks at land healing and protection with such a loving empathetic lens. It highlighted the parallel between elemental spirits in nature, and the elements that work within us for me.
• Jemma Foster – Sacred Geometry
  Everything in the Universe unfolds in the same beautiful geometric patterns and this book is a brilliant illustrated guide through that
• The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images (Taschen Esoterica)
  I've loved every book I've had so far from Taschen's Esoterica edition. This hefty number offers you a delectably illustrated interpretation of all the quintessential symbols with the archetypes and messages therein.
• Edmund Lenihan – In Search of Biddy Early
  Biddy Early was a 'wisewoman' from Clare, Ireland. She used herbal remedies and her famous blue bottle, which was anecdotally gifted to her by 'The Good Folk', to heal people. Tales speak of her believing that 'There was a cure for all evil between the two mill-wheels of Thoor Ballylee', the place where The Becoming's launch was held.
• Mary Hanley & Liam Miller – Thoor Ballylee: Home of William Butler Yeats (not pictured)
  Mary Hanley is the dedicated resolute figure behind restoring Thoor Ballylee, a 15the century Norman tower that the poet William Butler Yeats called his home for 12 years. In this short book, they unveil his life there in poetic detail, and the meaning this spirited place held in his mind.
• Charles Phillips and Peter E. Kukielski – Rosa the Story of the Rose (not pictured)
  This books was so much more than I ever could have expected. It brings you on an explorative journey through the various facets of the rose – in history, botany, in art. The rose is a prophetic alchemical, spiritual and astrological symbol.

Poetry

There are many moments during my intense period of transformation, where I can say poetry genuinely saved me. The way someone would spin a phrase to perfectly mirror what I was going through, legitimised my experiences. Made them feel like art, purposeful, instead of just needless suffering. It alchemised shame into light.

• Baudelaire – The Flowers of EvilThis book is a delightful exercise in allowing yourself to look at the more darker parts of beauty and existence with awe.
• Florence Welch – Useless MagicThe way this book is presented altered my brain chemistry. Full of colour, scribbled notes, artworks – it's a visual feast you can keep finding new snippets in. Perfectly in tune with Florence's haunting music that's been my witchy companion for years.
  
• Selected Writings of Paul ValéryIn Paris, in Place Trocadéro, on top of Palais de Chaillot a Paul Valéry quote reads: ' Every man creates, without knowing it • Just as he breathes • But the artist feels himself creating • His act engages his whole being • His beloved pains fortify him'. I read that at the most opportune moment of my life. 
• April Green – Bloom for Yourself
  April Green is someone I've come to know personally online. Her first collection Bloom for Yourself and subsequent publications made short form poetry viscerally appealing to me. The colour of her expression allowed me to be soft with myself, when experiencing death and dissolution.. 
• Rumi Selected Poems
  Rumi's work feels absolutely timeless; and in turn, reading his words, so do I.
• W.B. Yeats: Selected Poems (Phoenix Poetry)
  My most foundational material. The words of William Butler Yeats echo from my earliest literary memory. He is the reason I found my way to Irish soil, and a way to the depths of my soul.
• Leonard Cohen Poems ­(Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets)
  The way Leonard Cohen speaks his poetry in musical accompaniment – in husky, smoky tones, filled with knowing and experience. It made me feel that perhaps the chiselling heartbreaks of adulthood, are in fact, worth it.